


A Cut Above The Rest

by ValkerieRupert



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Pearl (Steven Universe), Autistic Peridot (Steven Universe), Child Abuse, DEAD FIC, Gen, Misgendering, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Smoky Quartz (Steven Universe), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Trans Bismuth (Steven Universe), Trans Character, Trans Pearl (Steven Universe), Transphobia, and by that I mean Australian high school
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-04-30 15:44:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 18,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14500272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValkerieRupert/pseuds/ValkerieRupert
Summary: Ever since she started school, Peridot has found that adjusting to a new school year was insanely difficult. It messed with her routine. It forced her to get to know a new teacher- or, starting in high school, several new teachers. It tore her away from her classmates and forced her to make new friends.Now she's starting year eight, and she's in a new school. She doesn't know anyone from primary school. She doesn't know any teachers. She doesn't even know what subjects she has. How will she survive?





	1. A New Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> First fic! I hope it's not too bad. Don't get too attached to it, I'm really bad with long fics and I'll probably abandon it when i get a new idea.  
> Also, for those of you who are super confused, in this AU they are in Australia instead of America like in canon for no reason other than that I can't be bothered typing 'mom' instead of 'mum' and researching the American school system. For those who don't know: Here in 'Straya, primary school is from kindergarden to year 6, and high school is years 7-12. We don't have a 'middle school' or a 'junior high'.  
> UPDATE 21/06/2018: This fic is offically dead. And it ends on a cliffhanger. So maybe don't read it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot greatly struggles to adjust to a new school year. Apparently she doesn't struggle enough to justify doing something to make her hair look nicer the night before, or at least get a haircut that fixes her terrible bangs.

Year eight.  
Adjusting to a new school year was never easy, especially for Peridot Iaraan. It forced her to suddenly completely rethink the routine she had so carefully formed over the school holidays. It tore her away from the friends (or, rather, the people who put up with her) she had made in her old class and forced her to get to know her new classmates and teacher (or, starting with high school, teachers).  
Year seven had been particularly hard on her, since she had to adjust to high school life, which was vastly different from primary school life, and her several meltdowns over it and constant bullying over said meltdowns along with her other autistic traits did not give her a good impression of high school.  
This year, however, she was starting a new school yet again- this time she was going to Diamond Academy, while last year had been at an all girls school. Her parents had arranged for her to move to stop the bullying. She tried to stay positive, she really tried. She tried to tell herself that it wouldn't be like last year and that it would be hard to adjust but she wouldn't be bullied.  
But she couldn't deny that she was anxious. She was sure that it would be the same. She would have to adjust again, she would have meltdowns over the stress again, she would be bullied over it again. Why would anything be different at this Diamond place?  
She looked in the mirror, staring at her new uniform- a white blouse and a navy blue tartan skirt. She shoved a navy blue blazer on over the blouse. She looked awful.  
Peridot was a short pale girl, with platinum blonde hair that was always messy in a vaguely triangle-shaped way and narrow, nerdy-looking glasses with green frames. The lenses had a bit of a yellowish tint to them, making her dark blue eyes seem green in the light.  
And her bangs. _Oh God, her bangs_. They had seemed cool in year seven but now she had to look good so nobody would bully her. Glancing around frantically, she grabbed a green triangle-shaped hairclip and forced her bangs to the top of her head.  
She shoved all her things into her green school bag and made herself some toast for breakfast. Soon it was time to catch the bus to school. After some ten minutes of waiting at the bus stop, the bus finally arrived and she found that it was empty. She took a seat at the very front and took out her cellular phone to start playing games that would ease her mind.  
Pretty soon she regretted her decision to sit at the front. By the time she got to school she had discovered that the front of the bus was home to a very large group of loud Polynesian girls who looked, quite frankly, terrifying to the young Peridot.  
It turned out that the girls were in fact very friendly, and despite the fact that Peridot was infringing on their place to sit on the bus, they greeted her, asked who she was and started a conversation, and didn't ask her to move. The problem was that they played very loud music that was sensory hell on poor Peridot's ears.  
The day had not started well.  
First period was hell. The whole school _(the whole school!)_ had to be gathered under the cola for ten minutes so everyone could recieve their schedule from the year advisor. What a stupid system! Wouldn't it make so much more sense to deliver the schedules before school started?  
For first period she had math class. Math was her favourite subject, but she had doubts it would be any good. She had already formed her opinion on high school, and her opinion was that it sucked.  
She saw that the math classroom had the tables arranged so that you had to sit with a partner, and she sat down in the front corner and prayed nobody would sit with her.  
As expected, someone did.  
The someone was a young Pakistani girl with a blue hijab and a much longer skirt than the rest of the class. She had dark blue eyes not unlike Peridot's, a long sleeved blouse unlike any other student she had seen so far and an _I don't give a damn_ look on her face.  
"Hi," she said in deadpan. "I'm Lapis."  
Peridot looked at her suspiciously. "Peridot," she muttered, offering her hand.  
Lapis didn't shake it.  
Today was not going well.  
After math was English class. English class was, according to her schedule, in D2. She didn't know where D2 was.  
"Umm...Lapis?" she asked; the girl was still standing relatively close to her, and the only person whose name she knew, which made her the person she felt the least weird talking to.  
"Yeah?"  
"I'm new here, can you show me the way to D2?"  
"Sure," answered Lapis, grabbing Peridot's hand and walking with her.  
Grabbing her hand.  
She felt the hand holding tightly onto hers, dragging her through the crowded halls of the high school. Through the noise. Through the people bumping into her. Through the people on every side of her pushing her in, suffocating her, their voices turning into indistinct noise that swirled around her, pressing on her skin until she couldn't focus on anything else.  
The last straw, she thought, was a large, muscular boy bumping into her, knocking her sideways into Lapis.  
Lapis stumbled slightly but quickly regained her footing. Peridot was not so lucky, collapsing onto the hard concrete the second Lapis moved out from under her. Lapis offered a hand to help her up. "Woah, you okay?"  
"I-I-I-" the blonde stammered. Lapis was standing over her. It was too loud. People were everywhere. Everything was scary and painful. She whimpered, curling up into a ball on the ground.  
"Peridot?" Lapis asked, sounding concerned. "What's wrong?"  
"T-Too crowded," Peridot stuttered, struggling to get the words out.  
A look of realization dawned over Lapis's face, and she sat down next to Peridot. "I'm going to stay here with you until you feel better. Let me know when you think you're ready to go to English class."  
Peridot nodded weakly. She wanted to thank Lapis, but she didn't have the words.


	2. The Twins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot makes friends with the girls who sit next to her in English class.  
> ...Peridot makes friends with one of the girls who sits next to her in English class.  
> ...Okay, Peridot discovers that one of the girls who sits next to her in English class is willing to tolerate her for some period of time.

"Amethyst Quartz?"  
"Here," answered a short, fat dark-skinned girl with long dark brown hair dyed with purple and white streaks.  
"Rose Quartz?"  
"Here," answered a taller pale girl, even chubbier than Amethyst, with even longer curly pink hair. Upon seeing the look of confusion on the teacher's face that the two had the same surname, she added, "We're cousins by marriage."  
"Right," muttered the teacher, groaning as he saw the next name on the roll. "Morion Quartz?"  
Even if the twins hadn't become (in)famous among the school last year for their pranks, the teacher wouldn't have had to ask to figure out which Quartz was related to Morion- or, as they preferred to be called, Smoky. The teenager had the same dark skin and hair as Amethyst, although Smoky's was shorter, and the two shared a stocky build and short stature, highlighted by the fact that they were sitting next to each other. The only major difference was that Smoky was a little taller and more flat-chested.  
"Here," muttered Smoky shyly.  
The teacher stepped forward threateningly, staring at Smoky and Amethyst. "Now, I don't know what posessed your year advisor to put twins in the same class in the first place, let alone keep them in the same class after they'd proved they were troublemakers, but I don't want you two sitting together. Amethyst, go sit over with Paul."  
_"Her_ name is Pearl," muttered Amethyst under her breath before going to sit with Pearl. Pearl was an olive-skinned trans girl with strawberry blonde hair pulled back by a white headband with an oval in the middle and blue eyes, but thanks to an incredibly transphobic mother she was known amongst the school as a 'weird crossdresser', which was the nicest nickname attached to her amongst several homophobic and transphobic slurs.  
Amethyst preferred to sit with her sibling, but it didn't really matter- she was friends with everyone in the class except for Jasper, and Pearl was an especially close friend of hers. The only thing that had really annoyed her was the teacher deadnaming Smoky and Pearl.  
The teacher took another threatening step towards Smoky. "Now, I think that Paul shall keep Amethyst in check, but if I catch you messing around, it's straight to detention. Got that? I don't want any trouble from you, _young man."_  
Smoky gulped. Amethyst clenched her fists in anger and Pearl had to grab her arms before she did anything stupid. "Calm down, Amethyst, you can't fight the teacher, I know you want to stand up for your sibling but picking fights will only make things worse..."  
Amethyst sighed, knowing Pearl was right. She looked all over at Smoky, frowning. Whenever they were at home and Amethyst accidentally called them 'dude' or 'guy' (which Amethyst insisted were both gender neutral terms, but she still tried to avoid using them for Smoky, Pearl and Bismuth, understanding how it might offend them), or Sugilite accidentally used her catch phrase of 'You like that, little man?', Smoky's reaction was simply to be angry, maybe a little hurt if the offender tried to argue that they were just overreacting.  
But now, being directly misgendered by the teacher, Smoky just looked hurt and afraid, and Amethyst could tell that they had been affected badly. She clenched her fists. It was lucky the teacher was, well, a teacher. A fellow student misgendering Smoky like that would not get off so easy.  
The teacher finished roll call and started the lesson, which was mainly an introduction to what they would be learning this year. Some ten minutes into class there was a knock at the door. When the teacher answered it, two girls walked in. One was Lapis Lazuli, who Amethyst already knew well. The other one was a complete stranger.  
The stranger had incredibly messy triangular hair, complete with a stupid-looking green hairclip and green, narrow-framed NERD GLASSES. She was pale, blonde and blue-eyed, and Amethyst took one look at her and thought she had all the typical characteristics of an obnoxious white girl, not unlike the ones who would often give her disgusted looks in the hallway and say something to the effect of, "What race even _are_ you?"  
She tapped Pearl's shoulder. "Hey, if that new girl comes in and starts a sentence with 'I'm not racist, but...' then I'm going to fight her, do you wanna join in?"  
"Err....I'll pass."  
"Sorry we're late," panted Lapis. "Peridot had a meltdown and I-"  
"You're ten minutes late!" snapped the teacher. "Peridot and Lapis?" he asked, picking up the paper roll again.  
The two teens nodded and the teacher made some markings with his pen. "Now- Lapis, sit next to Morion. Peridot, go sit with Paul and Amethyst."  
Amethyst groaned as the nerdy-looking girl sat down next to her. "Hi," she said, trying to keep the edge of malice out of her voice. "You must be new here."  
Peridot shook her hand. "You are correct, my name is Peridot and I recently transferred here. Pleased to meet you, Amethyst." She turned to Pearl. "And you must be Paul?"  
Pearl went red. "UmmactuallyI'mtransgenderandIprefertobecalledPearl," she mumbled quickly, not looking anywhere near Peridot's face.  
"Oh, sorry," said Peridot pretentiously. "Nice to meet you, Pearl."  
Amethyst rolled her eyes, glancing over at Smoky again. They were talking to Lapis. Like their sister Amethyst, Smoky was on good terms with most of the class, especially Pearl, Bismuth, Garnet and Rose; the only person they didn't really get along with was Jasper.  
She turned back to Pearl and Peridot, giving the latter a threatening look. "You know, you don't wanna mess with Pearl here. She's the top of the class."  
"Oh," said Peridot before turning to Pearl. "I admire your academic achievement and hope to surpass it."  
Pearl blushed. "Why thank you," she said before realizing something. "Do you have any friends here, seeing as you're new?"  
Peridot went red, adjusting her glasses in a pathetic attempt to look more confident. "Well, I wouldn't say I have friends as such, but I have made aquaintances with Lapis."  
She gestured towards where Lapis was sitting. "Interesting," replied Pearl. "Do you have anybody to sit with at recess today?"  
Peridot went even redder. "No," she mumbled.  
"Well, you can come and sit with me and my friends if you like."  
"Really?"  
"Course ya can, we let anyone sit with us as long as they're not mean!" said Amethyst.  
_'Oh for crying out loud Pearl, she can't sit with us, we haven't asked any of the others, she doesn't know anyone but us and Lapis, I bet she's one of those obnoxious white kids that doesn't know how to figure out whether her obviously offensive question is offensive, she's gonna misgender Smoky and Bismuth, we can't let her sit with us! Why would you say that?!'_ said Amethyst's brain.  
Peridot was not going to be fun to sit with.


	3. The Gang

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot gets to know the Crystal Gems, and judges all of them and their siblings.

Pearl and her friends always sat in the same place, every recess and lunch: on some silver benches on the school oval behind the Math classrooms in B-Block, underneath a large tree with beautiful purple flowers. Peridot, being new, had never seen this part of the school before, and she was amazed.  
"It's so pretty!"  
Amethyst chuckled, grabbing the blonde girl's arm. "Come on, you have to introduce yourself to the others." She grabbed her twin sibling by the arm, pulling them towards the two.  
"Smoky, this is Peridot, she's new here and she's sitting with us for now. Peridot, this is my twin _sibling. Their_ name is Morion but _they_ don't like _their_ name and _they_ prefer to be called Smoky."  
"Amethyst!" whispered Smoky, sighing as they heard their sister very obviously and deliberately putting using pronouns to refer to them as often as possible and putting as much emphasis on those pronouns as she could. Why couldn't she just straight up say, 'hey, this is my sibling Smoky, and they're nonbinary'?  
"Oh, right," said Peridot and then, as if she had failed to notice how Amethyst very obviously used gender neutral pronouns for Smoky as often as possible and put a lot of stress on those pronouns, she added bluntly, "Are you a girl or a boy?"  
Smoky blushed. "I- ahh- well- I'm- uhh- umm- I-"  
" _They_ are both a boy and a girl and you will use gender neutral pronouns when referring to them or I will punch your head in." growled Amethyst.  
Peridot stared for a moment, then gasped in realization. "OH! You're nonbinary!" She blushed. "Sorry, I didn't realize." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Wow, I am really on a roll with accidentally misgendering Amethyst's friends. Is there anyone else I should accidentally offend?"  
Amethyst briefly considered mentioning Bismuth, but decided against it. Bismuth could rather easily pass as a cis girl, if a very muscular one, thanks to her parents supporting her transition. She might want to keep it a secret for a while, and it would be unfair for Amethyst to out her.  
Soon Peridot had introduced herself to all of Pearl and Amethyst's friends, and formed her fairly judgemental opinions on each of them. Her personal 'favourite' of the group was Rose, a very tall, very chubby and very compassionate girl with long curly pink hair, who had seemed the happiest (well, least annoyed) of the girls to have Peridot there and had listened to her stories from her first high school without judging her or telling her about how oh that's nice but if I were in that situation I would do this or how it was her fault for freaking out and attracting bullies.  
Another girl she had met was Garnet. Garnet was a black, a little taller than Pearl and a lot more physically mature, with her short skirt showing off her very impressive hips. She wore sunglasses all the time for some reason and she seemed to have a British accent, though Peridot hadn't a clue why. She was fairly stoic most of the time, but she had taken off her sunglasses and looked furious for a moment when Peridot asked about her hair (she had just wanted to know how she had managed to create a square afro, of all things, but Garnet had apparently heard a lot of unpleasant comments on her hair), and an angry Garnet was absolutely terrifying.  
Garnet, Pearl and Rose seemed to be good friends with Bismuth, a very muscular black girl with her hair in dreadlocks dyed with rainbow streaks. Bismuth was enthusiastic, aggressive, and at times a little bit terrifying with her huge size compared to Peridot (and not in the nurturing motherly way that made her want to curl up in her arms), but she seemed relatively nice.  
And soon Peridot had made a routine out of sitting with these girls (and Smoky)- the 'Crystal Gems' as they called themselves, a silly little nickname they had assigned to themselves because an improbably large number of them were named after gemstones, and the ones that weren't (Rose and Smoky) had Quartz as a surname.  
Soon she got to know the siblings of these girls (and Smoky) that sometimes came to the group to talk to their relatives. There was Ruby, a short redheaded year 7 girl and Garnet's younger sister; Sapphire, a half-blind year 7 girl, even more stoic then Garnet, with light blue hair whose entire personality seemed to revolve around the fact that she was dating Ruby; Opal, Pearl's forgetful older sister in year 9 who came to check on Pearl every lunchtime and say reassuring things and tend to the various bruises she always came to school with; Sugilite, a huge year 10 girl and the sister of Amethyst and Smoky, absolutely terrifying to Peridot; and Sardonyx, Garnet's half-sister with a blonde triangular afro (apparently the improbable afro shapes ran in the family, since Ruby's afro was also square-shaped).  
Although she enjoyed the company of the Crystal Gems and sat with them every lunchtime, Peridot also liked talking to Lapis; she felt that she owed the taller girl a friendship, since she had helped her when she had a meltdown on the first day of school. Lapis was on...okay terms with most of the Crystal Gems other than Peridot, even seeming friendly with Smoky, Rose, Amethyst and Pearl at times, but she had a deep loathing for the group because of her intense rivalry with Bismuth. Luckily Peridot managed to avoid any fights from breaking out most of the time.  
At the moment they were in PE class, which you either loved or hated. Peridot hated it; she had never been any good at sport, and PE was the favorite class of Jasper, a menacing-looking muscular Hispanic girl covered in tattoos that seemed to be the only one in the school with the guts to ever tease Peridot about anything, although luckily between Lapis and the Crystal Gems, Peridot was never left defenseless.  
It was nearly the end of PE class, and (having joined up with a year 7 class who was having PE at the same time for some reason) the two classes had just finished a baseball game that they all agreed would have been a lot more fun if Sapphire hadn't completely forgotten about the game and started passionately kissing Ruby halfway through. Now the classes were walking back up the hill to the changerooms.  
Peridot and Lapis were walking together, a fair way behind the rest of the class, talking about inconsequential things, such as how strange it was that impossibly shaped afros seemed to run in Garnet's family. "But how is it possible?" rambled Peridot. "Is it in her genetics? Are square afros a dominant or recessive trait? What about Sardonyx? Is her hair naturally blonde? Is that even possible? Is it possible to have black hair and dye it blonde in a way that makes it hard to tell it's not your natural-"  
She stopped dead in the middle of her sentence, staring blankly at nothing. A few second later she started hyperventilating. "S-Something's wrong!" she stammered.  
"Peridot?" asked Lapis, bending down slightly and placing her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders. "What's wrong?"  
"I- My chest hurts! I can't breathe!"  
Lapis forced herself not to sigh as the puzzle pieces clicked together in her brain. Peridot was fine, she was probably just having a panic attack. She needed someone to reassure her and help calm her down, of course, but she would be fine. "Peridot, you're fine. Everything's okay. Come on, deep breaths."  
"I-I can't! My chest hurts!" the shorter girl yelled frantically. "I-I feel like- I think I'm going to-"  
She was cut off mid-sentence as the corners of her vision went black and she fell into Lapis's arms.


	4. Breaking News

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The universe punishes Peridot for judging everyone in the last chapter. Or she has chest problems. Whichever one seems more likely. She's in the middle of researching which one is more likely when she is interrupted by an autistic ballerina asking her for very stange advice.

"Peridot? Peridot! Wake up! Please, wake up!"  
Lapis's voice? Lapis! Lapis was worried about her, Lapis was worried, she had to show that she was okay....  
"Peridot! Please, wake up! Peridot, can you hear me?"  
A pathetic grunt escaped Peridot as her eyelids She felt Lapis's familiar arms grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her into a hug. "Oh thank God you're okay, I was so worried about you!" she said, finally releasing Peridot.  
Peridot looked around. They were in a grassy field, on a hill. There was a black fence in the distanct, with buildings behind it. Lapis was kneeling over her. "What happened?"  
"You fainted."  
Suddenly the memories came flooding back to her. She had been trying to tell Lapis something, her chest had been tight, she hadn't been able to get enough air in no matter how much she breathed, she had felt lightheaded, and then everything had gone black. Lapis stood up. "I'm going to get a teacher-"  
"No!" yelled Peridot.  
Lapis raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you want me to-"  
"If you tell a teacher then my parents will find out and they'll think I'm faking it for attention!"  
"Why would they think that?"  
Peridot blushed. "That's...that's what they thought when it happened last year..."  
Lapis sighed, a look of sympaty etched onto her face, and soon she was grabbing Peridot's arms and pulling her up. "Do you want me to help you get back to the changerooms?"  
"I- Y-yeah, I think that's a good idea..."  
"Are you okay now? How do you feel?"  
"Well, my chest hurts a little, but that happens a lot..."  
"Okay, you let me know if it gets worse. If you need help at lunch, then talk to someone, okay? All your friends really care about you....even that butt Bismuth (only 'butt' wasn't the word she used)...and I'm sure none of them would accuse you of faking this for attention. I think Rose knows first aid, so maybe you should tell her first."  
Peridot nodded, her face as red as...err...I dunno, her face was as red as something really red! Do I look like some sort of metaphor-knowing person?  
She smiled. This was the first time someone had believed her.

As usual for the afternoon, Peridot could be found typing away on her laptop. Unlike usual, she wasn't doing an assignment for school or writing bad fanfiction where an improbably large amount of characters are gay. She was frantically researching.  
At this point she was just about ready to give up; no matter what keywords she typed into Google, the Internet just didn't seem to have an answer for her near constant chest pains and dizzy spells, or the two incidents when she had actually fainted, and her parents had thought she was faking it for attention when she told them about the first time she had fainted, and she knew if she tried to tell them again they would accuse her of faking it again, which meant that she wouldn't be able to see a doctor.  
She had spent the past year or so just trying to force herself to accept that she would always have those problems, pretend that the times she had fainted could be chalked up to anxiety or PMS or not eating enough for breakfast (despite the fact that she always had the exact same thing for breakfast), and ignore the worry in the back of her mind that it was some sort of brain tumour or something and she needed help right now.  
It was a cycle: she would start to feel lightheaded more often than usual or maybe faint, she would be too scared to tell her parents because they wouldn't believe her this time, she would spend hours researching only to find nothing that matched her symptoms, and then she would try to tell herself that fainting for no apparent reason could be caused by PMS, even if it happened a week after her period ended.  
She was about to come to the conclusion that she would deal with it when she was old enough to go to the doctor without her parents and get on with her bad fanfiction when she heard a familiar noise coming from her pocket. "Aha!" she declared. "I have recieved a message on my _cellular phone!"_  
She took her phone out. It was Pearl. She quickly read it.  
_peridot i know i dont text u much but i cant think straihgt and rose doesnt have a clue what 2 do and i know ur smart and i really need ur help._  
Peridot stared. Although most of her friends texted her with an unhealthy dose of chatspeak and terrible grammar, Pearl was normally perfect, with her messges being phrased perfectly, with perfect spelling and grammar that made one wonder how long she must have spent proofreading each text (which explained how long she normally took to reply). Seeing her text with all lowercase letters and abbreviations (and even one genuine typo!) was...troubling, to say the least. It was as if she had been trying to get the message sent as quickly as she could and was too worried to care if people thought she was stupid.  
Peridot quickly typed up a response. _What do you need help with?_  
Her phone quickly buzzed again to show her Pearl had sent her answer.  
_i need to know how to treat a broken arm using only things i can find in my room_  
Peridot was about to type up a response, praying to God that this was just a hypothetical scenario, when her phone buzzed once more and she got another message from Pearl.  
_please hurry my sister's in pain_


	5. Help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot goes to extreme lengths to help her friend's sister with an injury that could probably heal on its own if she kept it still and protected for long enough.   
> Not that you should try and leave broken arms to heal on their own. That's a bad idea. Always go to the hospital just in case it's really bad. I just like making these summaries funny.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for mentioned transphobia and child abuse! It's only mentioned through text messages and not described, so hopefully it shouldn't be too much for most of you, but this chapter is also fairly plot-heavy and can't really be skipped, so if you can't handle it then...well, maybe this isn't really the fanfic for you.

Okay, so it wasn't hypothetical. Peridot did a quick Google search on how to treat a broken arm, clicked the first link she saw and skimmed through it before replying to Pearl.  
_Okay, you should probably be able to use a shirt or something like that to make a sling so it doesn't get worse. And if you can then you should probably go to the kitchen to get her painkillers and/or ice. But if it's really broken then you need to ask your parents to call an ambulance or get her to a hospital, I don't think advice from a nerdy teenager will fix her arm._  
Her reponse came through a few minutes later.  
_I managed to make a sling for her, but we cant leave the bedroom and we cant call someone to come here to help us_  
Peridot stared at the message for a few seconds. Her answer was a single word: _Why?_  
When she got the reply a minute later, she wished she hadn't asked.  
_my mum tried to beat me for being trans again, and shes drunk and she always goes too far when shes drunk so Opal tried to stand up for me and mum hit her with a broom really hard and i locked us in my room so we would be safe_  
Peridot forced herself not to yell out. She had so many questions- Her mum tried to beat her for being trans _again_? Was this a common occurance? Why had she never mentioned it? And she had said that 'she always goes to far when shes drunk'- what did _too far_ mean? Had Pearl been seriously injured by her mother before? Was this why she always came to school covered in bruises?  
She was about to ask Pearl any of these questions and much more, but she realized that she would be able to ask her at school. Right now Opal needed her, so she quickly sent Pearl a message.  
_We need to get her help. Do you think you would be able to climb out a window and walk to the hospital?_  
The response came through quicker than Peridot had expected.  
_i dont know if she would be able to climb out. even if she could shes in too much pain to move quickly, she cant stop crying and mum might hear her and find us, and i dont know the way to the hospital_  
Peridot read it quickly and typed up another text.  
_Okay, that means we'll need to get someone to drive you. Where do you live?_  
It was only a second before Pearl answered.  
_blacktown. i live like five minutes away from school._  
Peridot's heart sank. She lived hours away from the school taking the bus. Pearl and Opal walked to school, so if they lived five minutes away then they must have lived far from Peridot. Even if she could convince her parents to take her, by the time they arrived at her house it might be too late.  
She took a deep breath before thinking of what to tell Pearl next.  
_How bad is her arm? Is it an open fracture? Can she move it? Is it bent the wrong way or something?_  
She waited silently by her phone until she finally got the reply from Pearl  
_she can move it a little but it really hurts, she almost screamed when i made the sling for her and its really swollen_  
Peridot quickly thought of what Pearl should do next before sending her next instructions.  
_Okay, I want you to go through everyone on your contacts list and ask everyone you can if they can pick you up and drive Opal to the hospital._  
Normally when she was texting her friends she would be on her laptop or her DS as she waited for them to text her back, especially if it was Pearl (who seemed to spend at least a minute proofreading each message as if her friends were going to give her a grade and take marks off for every typo). But now, as she waited for Pearl to go through all of her contacts, she didn't touch her laptop or even play a game on her phone to pass the time. She gave Pearl and Opal her full attention.  
When at last Pearl responded, she barely had time to register the noise of her phone buzzing before she had started reading it.  
_rose is busy, garnet lives too far away, amethysts family doesnt have a car and bismuth isnt picking up the phone. please peridot im scared, mum is banging on the door and im scared shes going to be able to push it open._  
Peridot sighed; she hadn't been planning on resorting to this option, but at this point it seemed like there was no other choice. She quickly typed up a message for Pearl. _I'm going to contact one of my friends and ask her if she can help you. Just hang in there for a few minutes, ok?_  
A few seconds later, Pearl replied with a quick _'ok'_ and Peridot quickly scrolled through her contacts list until she found Lapis Lazuli and quickly sent her a message.  
_Lapis, I know this is going to seem weird but I really need you to help Pearl and Opal._  
It was only a few seconds before Lapis responded.  
_umm who the hell is Opal? And I dunno if I wanna help Pearl. She's friends with that butt Bismuth._  
Only 'butt' wasn't the exact word she used.  
Peridot quickly typed up a response.  
_Okay, first, please don't swear, my mum checks my phone sometimes and she might want me to stop being friends with you if she thinks you swear a lot. Second, Opal is Pearl's older sister. Third, I'm friends with Bismuth and you're still friends with me, so Pearl shouldn't be any different. Forth, I know you don't get along well with the Crystal Gems but I just found out Pearl's being abused and she and Opal really need help and you're the only person who can do anything._  
She could practicall hear Lapis sighing as her phone buzzed and she got the reply.  
_Okay, fine. what does she need help with?_  
Peridot, as usual, was quick to respond.  
_Apparently her mother attempted to beat her up for being transgender, and Opal tried to stand up for her and got her arm broken, and now they need to go to the hospital and you're the only one who would be able to drive them._  
Lapis's reply came quicker than expected. Ok, where does she live and how do i contact her?  
Peridot quickly typed up her answer.  
_I'll give her your cellular phone number and you two can work it out together_  
She quickly went back through her contacts list and found Pearl, sending her another message. _Pearl, I know you and Lapis don't usually get along that well but she says that she's willing to help you. Her cellular phone number is 866-276-6760, text her and you two can work it out together._  
Pearl's response only took a few seconds to reach her. _ok thank you so much peri you have no idea how grateful i am_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are curious, I got Lapis's phone number from a tumblr post on google images that had a series of fake phone numbers to give to creepy guys. The post said that the number will only respond with 'I AM GROOT' when called, but I don't have the credit or the time to test it out so it might be fake for all I know, or only work for certain countries,


	6. Flashback

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pearl's mother hates Opal for the horrible crime of...looking like her father. She also hates Pearl for daring to...discover things about herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavy trigger warning for descriptions of transphobia and child abuse, and also some mentions of ableism and racism! Nothing terribly plot-relevant happens in this chapter, so if you feel that you won't be able to handle the content then you can skip it without missing anything important. Also, since this ended up being longer than I like my chapters (normally when they get too long I divide them into smaller chapters, but I couldn't find a good place to break this one up): If you're feeling lazy, then you can just read the writing in italics, since most of the writing not in italics is just framing devices.

It was a relatively short ride in Lapis's car, but the time waiting outside Opal's room in the hospital was long and slow and gave Pearl plenty of time to think about what had happened, and how Opal had gotten hurt trying to defend her.  
Opal had her mother's big blue eyes like Pearl, but that was where the similarities ended. Opal was signifigantly taller than her sister and had darker skin, and her father's dark hair that was technically a shade of brown but easy to mistake as black. Her hair was also much longer than Pearl's; while Pearl was forced to keep her hair short by her mother, Opal was allowed and encouraged to grow hers out, and even when tied up into a ponytail (which it normally was, since otherwise it was near impossible to manage) it was almost knee-length.  
Lapis had decided to stay with her to see if Opal was okay; even if she had never met Opal before today and she didn't exactly get along well with Pearl, she could tell that Pearl was distressed and it wouldn't be right to leave her alone.  
Rose came to the hospital as soon as she was no longer busy, and soon after Sugilite arrived, having walked her siblings down to support Pearl. Having Rose, Smoky and Amethyst to talk to was distracting, but Pearl still couldn't stop thinking about her mother.  
She remembered the first few years of her life, before she knew she was a girl. Back when her father was still alive. Her father had treated her and Opal fairly equally, but her mother greatly favoured Pearl for reasons the young child couldn't understand- looking back, it seemed obvious that the reason was that Pearl was white-passing while Opal took after their Filipino father, but as a child Pearl had been to naive to figure it out. But then she had been diagnosed with autism...  
_It had seemed like everything was fine; Daddy gave her a brief explanation on the fact that she had a disability called autism and outlined the basics of what that meant, encouraging her to research it in her own time. But then the next day at school, she and Opal got home before Daddy was home from work, and Mummy had angrily ordered her to come into the kitchen._  
_"Paul! How could you betray the family like this?!?! Autism! You're autistic! I mean, I know you can't help it, but you didn't have to exaggerate the symptoms so that your stupid father wanted a diagnosis! Now your sister will be so ashamed to be near you at school! I don't want to see you stimming in public, and you had better not have a meltdown!"_  
Starting from that moment their mother was cold and distant towards both sisters, and it only got worse when their father died. She would berate Pearl for daring to show any autistic traits even for a second, and pretty much everyting Opal did seemed to be somehow wrong. And then, in the school holidays halfway through year seven, Pearl had realised she was trans...  
_"Mum? Opal? I have something to tell you two..."_  
_Her mother glared at her while Opal stared with open, compassionate eyes._  
_"Well, what is it, then?" demanded her mother._  
_Pearl gulped. "I'm transgender."_  
_Her mother stepped forward threateningly. "WHAT did you say?"_  
_"I'm transgender. I'm a girl."_  
_She felt something smacking the side of her face. "No you're not!" screamed her mother. "You're not a girl! You're not a transsexual! Paul, do you really think that this is acceptable?! Going THIS FAR just for attention?! You're going to pretend to be a girl just so that Opal and I will give you more attention?!"_  
_Before she knew it all hell had broken loose. Her mother was pinning her against the kitchen wall, yelling at her and beating her until her arms were covered in bruises. Opal was begging her to stop but it was no use. Until finally she managed to break free of her mother's grip and run into her room, slamming the door shut and locking it. Only then did she finally stop and look down at herself, shaking. She sat down, leaning against the door to her bedroom, brought her knees in towards her chest and sobbed into her arms._  
_It was only a few minutes (though it felt like a lot longer) before she heard a soft knock on the door. "Paul?" asked Opal's voice. "Can I come in? I'm not going to hurt you, I promise."_  
_Pearl forced herself to stand up, slowly unlocking and opening the door and quicly locking it shut as soon as Opal was inside, still terrified that her mother was going to come for her. She tried to say something but she couldn't think of any words. And now Opal was seeing her in such a distressed state, she probably thought she was insane and thinking she was a girl when she wasn't. She felt so ashamed..._  
_"Come on, Paul, don't cry, I'm here, I believe you, everything's gonna be fine...Can you handle touch right now?"_  
_Pearl nodded weakly, and before she knew it she could feel Opal's arms wrapped around her, running her fingers through her hair. Opal was shaking too. Was she worried for Pearl? Maybe she really did believe she was a girl..._  
_Eventually the two broke out of the hug, but Opal still held onto her younger sister's arms; Pearl's legs were shaking so much it looked like she was about to collapse from shock. "Are you badly hurt? Is anything broken?"_  
_"I'm fine," she answered softly; she always found it difficult to talk when she was scared, and right now she hated the sound of her own voice, and she dreaded to think that it would get deeper and lower and more masculine as she continued going through puberty. "Just a few bruises..."_  
_Within seconds they were hugging again. "Oh, what are we going to do with you....You can't stay here, not with mum, she hates you now....Have you told any of your friends?"_  
_"No," answered Pearl, her voice cracking as tears continued to pour down her cheeks. "Nobody else knows."_  
_"You should tell them. I've met all your friends, and they all accept Bismuth for who she is. I'm sure they'll accept you, Paul." She paused. "Paul doesn't suit you anymore. Do you want me to call you by a different name?"_  
_Pearl pulled herself out of the hug ponce again and nodded. "Pearl," she answered, loving the way it rolled off her tongue. It was perfect. It was her name . She was Pearl._  
_"Okay, Pearl. You should tell the Crystal Gems. I'm sure they'll understand."_  
The rest of the holidays were hell for her; she wanted to badly to tell her friends she was trans, but somehow she didn't feel comfortable sending them a text message and she always got anxious during phone calls. Opal, being much taller than Pearl and a year older, allowed her to wear her old dresses and skirts that no longer fitted her, but her mother was not happy to see her wearing them, and Opal would get in trouble too for allowing it. Luckily, when it was finally time for school again, her friends were much more accepting...  
_She didn't know why she was telling Rose first. It didn't make sense; Bismuth was trans herself, she would understand, it just made more sense to tell her first. But yet here she was, standing in front of Rose. She supposed she was a little scared; Bismuth was very defensive of her identity, and a part of her was worried that if Bismuth didn't believe she was really trans then she would get angry._  
_"Rose," she began. "There's something I need to tell you, something important..."_  
_"What is it?" asked Rose, seeming to easily pick up on the urgency of the situation immediately._  
_Pearl took a deep breath. "I'm a trans girl."_  
_"Oh," said Rose, sounding a little surprised but not angry or dissapointed. "Have you told the other Crystal Gems?"_  
_"No," answered Pearl. "I was too scared they wouldn't believe me..."_  
_"What about your family? Does your mum know?"_  
_"Well, yes, but..." She burst into tears, jumping forward into Rose's arms and sobbing into her shoulder. "She hates me! She- She says I'm lying about being trans to get attention! She hates me, Rose!"_  
_"Oh, Paul, I'm sure she doesn't really hate you...Bismuth told me that her parents took a while to fully understand her, I'm sure if you give her some time then she'll open up to you..."_  
_"No, you don't understand!" She rolled up the sleeves of her navy blue blazer, showing Rose the bruises on her arms. "A-After I told her- She got mad at me-"_  
_A look of sympathy came over Rose's face as she ran her hands along the bruises. "Oh, Paul..."_  
_"That's not my name."_  
_Pearl was surprised at her own nerve to correct Rose like that, but she didn't back down when she saw her girlfriend look surprised. "Oh, I didn't realize- what do you want me to call you?"_  
_"Pearl."_  
_Rose chuckled. "I like that name. It suits you perfectly. Come on, Pearl, I'll help you tell the others."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aha, more than five chapters and I still haven't lost interest! Don't get your hopes up. I very rarely finish long fanfictions, and I haven't even planned this one out so if I get writer's block then it's all over.


	7. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peridot makes bad metaphors about chess, Garnet makes jokes about bad metaphors about chess, and Amethyst almost breaks Peridot's phone.

When Opal was out of hospital with a huge case around her arm, the doctors had been greatly concerned by Pearl's explanation of what had happened, and after the police had been called and both sisters had spent hours being questioned by social services, the two had been told that their mother was unfit for parenting and that they would be moved into a foster home shortly. The social workers offered the sisters a temporary place to stay until it was sorted out, but the two instead chose to stay with Amethyst's family for the night.  
The Quartz family was completely different to their own; while their mother was very strict and impossible to avoid as she was always at home, Amethyst's father was out working until ten at night, and as such Sugilite seemed to be in charge of her siblings to some degree. When he was around, their father was laid-back and encouraged the kids to have fun as long as nobody got hurt- the only thing he seemed terribly concerned about was whether Pearl and Opal were eating enough. Opal was on the skinny side but still fairly average, and Pearl was underweight but not dangerously so, but the Quartzes were all extremely large and reacted to the two as if they were one skipped meal away from starving to death.  
The thing that surprised Opal and Pearl the most was when they left for school. The two lived a mere five minutes away from the school, which meant that if they were ever running late (which was extremely rare for Pearl, as she was extremely organized, but fairly common for Opal, who would forever leave for school and walk a few steps before realizing she forgot something) then they could leave fairly late without having to worry about being late for class, but they still preferred to leave early more often than not, since it gave them plenty of time to talk to their friends (and, in general, any time spent away from their mother was good time)  
The Quartzes, on the other hand, lived a good 45 minutes away from the school if they were walking fast. This took Pearl and Opal by surprise because, when Sugilite finally decided it was time to go, it was a few minutes after Pearl normally liked to leave. The long walk gave Pearl plenty of time to understand the reason why Amethyst and Smoky were forever running into class ten seconds before the teacher arrived.  
When they arrived at school ten minutes before class started (a lot later than Pearl liked but a lot earlier than was usual for the twins), they found themselves surrounded by concerned friends who wanted to make sure the two were okay.  
"I'm so sorry I couldn't help you," apologized Garnet. "I would have had to take the train to get to you, and it would have taken me hours to get there."  
Bismuth had run up to her just as English class was starting in the morning. "Pearl- My phone ran out of battery last night and I only saw your messages this morning- I'm so sorry-"  
"It's fine," said Pearl. "Lapis and Peridot helped Opal and I. It's not your fault."  
They didn't have assigned seating in English class, but most of the class valued structure enough that they would sit in roughly the same place every time they had class, especially after Amethyst and Smoky had given up on attempting to sit together after the teacher had moved Amethyst for the fifth time (for some reason always moving her over to where Pearl and Peridot were sitting). Nobody had an assigned seat, but nobody could be blamed for being angry at someone who stole their seat, and on that day Amethyst, Pearl and Peridot were once again sitting together.  
"Thank you so much for giving me Lapis's phone number, Peridot," thanked Pearl. "You really saved us."  
"It wasn't a problem," replied Peridot. "Does your mother really treat you so awfully?"  
Pearl chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm afraid so..." She sighed. "You know, when I was really little, I used to be her favourite, because I was..." She anxiously glanced at Amethyst. "Well, you see, I looked more like my mother, while she took after our father-"  
"FOR CRYING OUT LOUD PEARL, JUST SAY YOUR MUM WAS RACIST!" screamed Amethyst.  
Everyone in the class turned to stare. "Sorry," muttered Amethyst. "I'm just getting really sick of people trying to avoid talking about stuff like that. I mean, it happens, it happens all the time, and we're not going to be able to stop it from happening until we can start talking about it."  
Once their peers had gone back to talking amongst themelves and doing their work, Pearl continued. "Well, anyway, I was her favourite for a while, when I was young. But then I..." She paused, wondering whether to continue.  
"Came out as trans?" offered Peridot unhelpfully.  
"No," mumbled Pearl. "Don't tell anyone, but...She started treating me differently, when, well...when I was diagnosed with autism."  
She closed her eyes, terrified that Amethyst would accidentally scream, "YOU'RE AUTISTIC?!" and indirectly tell the whole class. Instead she looked up at the board to glance at the notes they were copying down and said, sounding only mildly surprised if that, "Oh, you're autistic?"  
"Umm...yes."  
"Thought so," said Peridot. "It was rather obvious, really."  
Some ten minutes later, the teacher glanced at the clock. "Okay, class, we've finished all our work for today, but we still have some time left until next period...Who thinks we should start presenting our speeches?"  
The whole class groaned. Some two weeks before, they had been given an assignment which required them to prepare a two-minute speech about one of the books they had studied so far this year and present it in front of the class, and although most of the class had found the speech-writing to be relatively easy, every single one of them dreaded actually presenting it.  
"I'll take that as a yes." He grabbed the nearby paper roll. "Okay, let's do it in alphabetical order. Okay, Lars is away today, so...Garnet Corrundum?"  
Garnet was somewhat caught off guard, but she managed to keep her cool, adjusting her sunglasses calmly (nobody else was allowed to wear sunglasses in the classroom, but Garnet's parents had cleared it with the school because she had sensory processing disorder and the lights in the classroom bothered her). "I don't have my speech ready today, sir."  
"Why not?"  
"Because on the weekend I had to go to the city to see my sister perform, and every afternoon this week I've been babysitting my sister, and it's not due until next week anyway."  
Peridot snickered. "Well, you should have been prepared! Life is like a game of chess: you always need to be one step ahead of your opponent."  
Garnet took off her sunglasses to reveal her beautiful onyx eyes, giving Peridot a knowing look. "If life is so much like a game of chess, then I think white should go before black."  
"I-th-bt-uh-wl-" stuttered Peridot before starting to open and close her mouth cluelessly like a fish trying to find food, or an obnoxious white kid whose plans to ridicule a girl for not finishing her homework a week before it was due had horribly backfired on her. After she had recovered from the horrible trauma of being outwitted, she pulled herself together enough to mumble, "As much as I would love to admit that I have lost this battle of wits and acknowledge your intellect by presenting my speech now, I am currently a little under the weather and I do not feel I would be able to present the speech to the best of my ability."  
"What?" asked Smoky, sounding legitimately confused.  
"I don't wanna do it today 'cos I'm sick!" snapped Peridot, muttering something about her own analogy being used against her.  
Amethyst raised an eyebrow. "Are you really sick?" she asked, quietly so that the teacher wouldn't tell her off for talking in class. "I mean, your parents keep you home if it seems like you're even a little bit sick so you don't infect the whole class. Like, last term you stayed home because you were coughing more than usual and your parents were worried."  
Peridot blushed. "Yes, well, my parents have a habit of insisting that I am faking it when I tell them I'm sick sometimes."  
Pearl, meanwhile, was staring at something behind Peridot's head. "Is it just me, or is Lapis trying to say something in sign language?"  
Peridot looked behind her, blushing, to see Lapis staring at Bismuth, signing a long string of profanity, while Bismuth looked at her nervously and mumbled, "What's she saying?"  
"Oh my gosh," muttered Peridot, facepalming. "I knew I shouldn't have taught her how to swear!"  
"What's she saying?" asked Amethyst eagerly.  
"Umm...she's implying that Bismuth is the male offspring of a female dog...she's comparing her head to the male genitailia...she's suggesting that Bismuth participate in an activity which, if said activity was at all possible, which it isn't, could theoretically result in her getting herself pregnant....she's advising Bismuth that, upon her death, she should find herself in a place where many religions, notably Christianity, believe that sinners go after death...and, in rather impolite terms, she's calling her a mother-effer and a butt-hole."  
"Mother-effer?!" laughed Amethyst. "Butt-hole? Peridot, we're in high school! You need to learn how to swear!"  
"I can swear, I just don't want the teacher to hear us!"  
"Why does she hate Bismuth so much anyway?" asked Pearl.  
"I dunno," muttered Amethyst. "They've been fighting for so long now that I don't even remember what started it anymore."  
"I haven't got a clue," interjected Peridot. "They already hated each other by the time I got here. All I know is that they really-" She was cut off by a familar buzz from her pocket. "Aha! I have recieved a message on my cellular phone! Oh, wait, we're in class, I might get in trouble if I check it. Remind me to check it at recess."

After English was technology class. For some completely arbitrary reason, their normal classes were divided in half for technology and visual arts, which meant that Peridot was seperated from all of her friends except for Garnet and Smoky. None of the others were sure what went on in technology, but every time she had tech class Peridot would come back in a very bad mood and be prone to freaking out over unexpected noises even more than usual, and this recess was no exception.  
"Umm, Peridot," mumbled Pearl nervously. "You told me to remind you to check your phone-"  
"Ugh!" screeched Peridot, taking out her phone and checking her messages. It was just spam. She opened her notepad app and started typing vigorously.  
After some ten minutes of intense typing, Amethyst glanced at the screen. To her surprise, Peridot was typing out a long string of profanity she couldn't possibly imagine the blonde girl ever uttering. "Peri! Stop that!" she snapped, grabbing the phone.  
"No! You can't tell me what to do!"  
"P-Dot! If you're upset, you need to find a healthy way of venting, you can't just swear on your phone and not tell anyone!"  
"Give me back my cellular phone!"  
At this point Amethyst felt like having a bit of fun. "Don't worry, I won't hurt your phone- oops! I almost dropped it! Geez, that was a close call- oops!"  
She 'accidentally' threw the phone into the air, this time accidentally (for real this time, she had just been intending to throw it a few inches and catch it until Peridot got sick of her and did something) throwing it high enough that it was actually in serious danger of breaking if Amethyst didn't manage to catch it, and far enough that it was incredibly improbable that she would be able to catch it. "No!" screamed Peridot, reaching out to grab the phone that was far out of her arm reach and closing her eyes in anticipation of it breaking.  
Silence.  
No cracking glass or gasps of shock.  
Slowly, but surely, she opened her eyes.  
The phone was levitating in front of her.


	8. Camp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Crystal Gems talk about money and school camps, and Garnet takes advantage of her future sister-in-law.

She stared in confusion. She lowered her arms slightly. The phone lowered slightly. She moved her arms to the left. The phone moved to the left. Slowly, nervously, she moved her arms towards her own chest, and the phone flew into her arms. She put it into her pocket, then said, rather calmly she thought, "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!"  
She took her green watch off, throwing it into the air and using her arms to guide it as it floated around above them. Rose stared. "Woah, is anyone else getting deja vu right now? I mean, it's not like any of us could have seen this before..."  
"Are you okay, Pearl?" asked Garnet. "I can understand why you might be shocked, but you look like you're about to throw up."  
The group turned to see Pearl standing more still than they had ever seen her before, shaking all over and covering her mouth with her hands. "Pearl?" asked Rose, running towards her girlfriend. "What's wrong?"  
Pearl didn't respond, starting to shake even more as all the colour drained from her face. Rose bit her lip, gently reaching out to touch her shoulder. "Pearl! Can you hear me?"  
It took a second for Pearl to notice the hand on her shoulder; when she finally did, she promptly squealed out, flinching away as if Rose's touch had physically hurt her. She noticed everyone staring at her and her cheeks went from pale to bright red in an instant. "I- umm- I have to go and do that thing- you know, the thing that isn't an excuse to leave."  
She grabbed her bag and ran off. Bismuth stared in shock. "Woah, is it just me, or was that kind of weird?"  
Amethyst chuckled slightly. "No crap, sherlock." Only 'crap' wasn't the exact word she used. "Which part was weird, the part where Peridot gained the power of levitation, or the part where Pearl went into some sort of weird trance and ran off?"  
"Both."  
"Hey," giggled Smoky, grinning. "Ammy, didn't you say Pearl went into some sort of weird..."  
"Don't say it!"  
_"...trans?"_  
The group collectively groaned as the weight of the bad pun descended upon them. Smoky giggled. "Hey, I can't help it! Puns _trans_ -cend us!"  
Garnet adjusted her glasses. "You're even worse with puns than Sardonyx," she said bluntly.

After recess they had PE class, but Pearl was nowhere to be seen. At first her friends just assumed she had decided to get changed in the bathrooms to avoid being bullied by her male classmates (granted, she would be bullied for using the bathrooms too, regardless of which ones she used, but at least she could lock herself in the cubicle until she felt safe if nessecary), but they soon realized that she seemed to have decided not to bother coming to class.  
Then they had math class; Pearl was there, but she walked into class five minutes late (late! Pearl!) and sat down in the far corner, ignoring her friends attempting to talk to her. At lunchtime she dawdled behind as she was walking to their spot on the oval and, upon arriving, dumped her bag down, sat on a bench and said as loudly as possible, in an incredibly unnatural-sounding voice, "OKAY, WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT CAMP?!"  
In just under two months, stage 4 (or, in terms that actually make sense, years 7 and 8) were going on a school camp in an area that, according to the teachers, had plently of caves and mountains to explore. Nobody was terribly impressed by this; there had been no camp last year (apparently they did it every two years so that the year 8 students wouldn't end up going to the exact same camp again), but they knew from primary school that the campsites were never as good as the teachers said they would be. Still, the teachers had said that most of the time they would be free to do whatever they liked, and most of the kids were secretly planning to go out of the camp grounds to explore at some point, so most of them were looking forward to it.  
Peridot raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said your mother wouldn't let you go?"  
"Well, now that Opal and I don't live with her any more, I might be able to go."  
"It depends on when you get into a foster home and how much money they have," interjected Amethyst. "The payment cut-off is soon, and if you're still living with us by then, there's no way you're going."  
"Yeah," agreed Smoky. "Sorry, P, but there's no way Dad can afford to pay for you. Heck, we don't even know if we're going, and that's with Sugilite selling chocolate to raise money..."  
"Same here," said Bismuth sadly. "Things were already pretty tight before I told them about the camp. Mum says that I'll be able to go, but I think she's just lying to make me feel better."  
"Wait a sec," said Garnet before taking out her phone, pressing a few buttons and holding it to her ear. "Hello, Ruby...your girlfriend's rich, right? ...Okay, can I talk to her?"  
"Garnet, are you asking your sister's girlfriend to pay for me to go to camp?!" exclaimed Bismuth.  
Garnet took the phone away from her head for a second, muttered, "No," and then continued to ask her sister's girlfriend to pay for Bismuth to go to camp.  
Rose chuckled. "And I'll talk to my parents about lending your dad some money, if you want," she said to Amethyst and Smoky. "I mean, we are cousins!."  
"Only by marriage," replied Amethyst, crossing her arms and pouting. "And Dad doesn't like borrowing money. He never knows when he's going to be able to afford to pay people back."  
"Well, then, I'll lend him some more money so he can pay us back."  
"Rose, think about what you just said."  
Rose thought about it, and after a long thought, concluded that she was an idiot.  
Garnet put the phone down. "Bismuth, tell your parents that you're going to camp. I've got it covered."  
"Are you serious?"  
"Yes."  
Pearl sighed. "That means that if I don't get to go then I'll be completetely alone!"  
Rose chuckled. "Oh, don't worry, Pearl. We're the Crystal Gems. We'll work something out."  
Pearl blushed. "The Crystal Gems...he he....yeah..." she muttered, adjusting her headband.


	9. The FIght

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lapis says something she shouldn't have said, and Peridot discovers that, whether they're on opposite teams in PE or running to get to Lapis before the other can, she cannot beat Bismuth in a race.

As the time ticked down until the school camp, Pearl managed to talk her foster parents into letting her go at short notice and, with the help of Sapphire, Rose and Rainbow, it was soon known that all of the Crystal Gems would be going, which was a fact that made everyone in years 7 and 8 happy. Well, except for one person.  
"So," said Lapis Lazuli, trying to stay friendly but unable to keep the malicious edge out of her voice. "Are we going to be in the same cabin for camp?"  
Peridot's heart sank. "Sorry, I already told the Crystal Gems I would be with them."  
"Oh..." said Lapis sadly. "That's fine...It's just...I was hoping we could be together...I guess I'll just have to be with a bunch of kids I don't know..."  
Peridot raised an eyebrow. "What about those kids you sit with at recess and lunch?"  
"They're all in year nine."  
"Oh," muttered Peridot, thinking. She had promised the Crystal Gems she would be with them, and she couldn't break that promise, but it would be awful to leave Lapis alone and she knew how bad it was to be stuck with strangers on a school camp. "Maybe I could ask them if you can join us?" She saw the annoyed look on Lapis's face and added, "Don't worry, I'll make sure you don't have to be with Bismuth."  
Lapis laughed. "Oh, like I'd end up with that butt either way!" Only 'butt' wasn't quite the word she used. "She'll be with Pearl and Smoky and the boys."  
"Eh? What are you talking about?"  
Lapis continued laughing. "What? _You don't know?_ I mean, gosh! I know you weren't here last year, but you'd think she would have told you! Heck, I would have thought you could figure it out just by looking at her..."  
"What are you talking about?" repeated Peridot, sounding annoyed.  
Lapis opened her mouth to answer, then reconsidered it. Sure, Bismuth was a massive jerk, but did that really excuse making fun of her like this or telling Peridot she was trans? Peridot had been at the school for almost half a year now; if Bismuth hadn't told her yet then she probably had a good reason not to.  
"Never mind," she said, hoping that she hadn't already gone too far in mocking Bismuth. "Just forget I said anything."  
"But-"  
"Forget I said it!" she snapped.  
Peridot nodded, and then proceeded to make sure she would remember it for as long as possible.

As it always did, lunchtime rolled around, and Peridot quickly ate her food (well, some of it- her parents always overestimated her appetite when packing her lunch for her and Amethyst and Smoky were glad to take the leftovers), went to the bathroom, filled up her water bottle, decided to 'get a head start' on her math homework and accidentally finished it, and completed several more mundane tasks in her quest to stall for time so she could justify to herself why she wasn't talking to Bismuth.  
After she had done just about every time-stalling task she could think of, she sighed, and then decided it would be best to get it over with now so that she wouldn't waste time being curious about it later. She walked over to her friend and tapped her shoulder.  
"Umm...Bismuth? Can I ask you something?"  
"Sure!" answered Bismuth, enthusiastic as ever, playfully ruffling Peridot's hair. Peridot used to find the gesture aggressive and confusing, but now it seemed affectionate. Still, Lapis had gotten her curious, and now she had to say it.  
She took a deep breath. "Are you transgender?"  
Bismuth stared in confusion for a few seconds, then said, "Well, duh! Didn't you know?!"  
"No..." mumbled Peridot meekly. She understood that Bismuth had every right not to tell her, but the way everyone was treating her like she should have known made her feel like she wasn't really a Crystal Gem.  
"Seriously? I mean, I guess I never directly told you, but didn't you ever notice that I always use the boy's changerooms for PE?"  
Peridot shrugged. "I just assumed you changed in the bathrooms..."  
"Or the _trans pride wristband_ that I _literally always wear?"_ she chuckled, shoving her left wrist into Peridot's face.  
Only then did the blonde girl notice the blue, pink and white wristband her friend was wearing. Now that she thought about it, she had seen it a few times, but never got a proper look and dismissed it as being for a TV show or a band or something. "Okay, now I just feel like an idiot."  
"Sorry," apologized Amethyst. "I probably shoulda told you on the first day, when I was introducing you to everyone. So, what made you suddenly realize that Bismuth is openly trans?"  
Peridot blushed. "Oh, um...I was just talking to Lapis about camp-"  
"LAPIS?!" roared Bismuth. "I swear to God, if she told you, that little-" she began before proceeding to tell the whole group exactly what she thought of Lapis.  
Peridot gulped. "Well, she wanted me to be in a cabin with her, but I'd already promised I'd be with you guys, and most of her friends are in year nine, so I said maybe she could be with us, and she looked annoyed, so I told her she wouldn't have to be with you, and she started laughing and said you'd be with the boys..."  
Bismuth took a deep breath. "Calm down," she whispered to herself. "revenge won't help anybody..."  
Within seconds Bismuth was running off screaming profanity about Lapis, and Peridot was running after her, yelling, "Wait! I'm sure she didn't mean to be transphobic! She honestly thought I knew!"  
Unfortunately, Bismuth was signifigantly more muscular than Peridot, and a lot better at PE, while Peridot was absolutely pathetic at any physical sport. Which meant that while Bismuth was running towards Lapis at a speed that would put most of the other students to shame, Peridot was chasing after her at speeds faster than the average snail, and having to stop to catch her breath every two seconds.  
By the time she caught up to Bismuth, red in the face and gasping for breath, it was already too late. Lapis looked more scared than Peridot had ever see her before, throwing her hands in front of her face and screwing her eyes shut, wimpering slightly as Bismuth came closer.  
"Stop!" yelled Peridot with what little breath she had left in her lungs.  
Bismuth ignored her, grabbing Lapis's shoulders aggressively. Lapis finally opened her eyes, trying to push the larger girl away, and soon they were engaged in a full-on wrestle.  
At first it was mainly Bismuth doing the actual fighting, with Lapis just trying to defend herself while Peridot uselessly stood to the side trying to politely persuade Bismuth to stop. Until in one quick move, Bismuth tore the blue fabric of Lapis's hijab away from her head and threw it to the floor, revealing black hair only a little longer than Pearl's. That was when it turned into a real fight.


	10. The Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth and Lapis get in trouble, everybody gets on the bus to camp, and Pearl wears clothing completely unsuitable for the cold weather.

Peridot finally snapped out of her insane useless trance and went to get a teacher. The fight was broken up and both parties were immediately called to the principal's office to talk to the deputy principals, Yellow Diamond and Blue Diamond. Their parents were summoned to the school, and punishments were decided.  
Lapis got off relatively easy- her parents had a rule that if she got into a fight, she had ten seconds to explain why she had started throwing punches, and if they thought it was a valid reason then the school could do whatever they wanted with her, but she wouldn't be punished at home. After they had decided that it was Bismuth's fault for taking off her hijab, Lapis was handed a few days of detention, a few worksheets to fill out with questions about why she was being punished and why she had decided to fight Bismuth, and a stern warning that the consequences would be much worse if anything of the sort happened again.  
Bismuth was...less lucky. Lapis almost never got into fights, and when she did she was mostly just trying to defend herself, but Bismuth was aggressive, and had gained an infamous reputation for starting fights over several things, especially with people who weren't Crystal Gems, viewing them as the enemy. So far she had already been suspended three times and spent enough time in detention that nobody ever made plans with her at lunch because they doubted she would be allowed outside of the classroom, and the school was seriously considering if further punishment was nessecary.  
She was suspended, once again, for twice as long as Lapis, but when she came back she quickly found that that wasn't the end of her punishments. As her parents were called to yet another meeting before she was allowed to come back to school, she realized that they weren't giving her the usual 'that was wrong, don't do that again, if you do that again then you'll be in even more trouble' talk.  
Expulsion was discussed as a possible outcome if she kept going the way she was going, but she doubted it would go that far, especially as it was known that in most cases she only started the fight because another student was deliberately provoking her and Rose was helping her find healthier ways to deal with anger. No, the thing that really worried her was when they mentioned that she may have to be barred from the school camp.  
"Wait! No!" she stammered. "Please! I-I'm working on my anger problems, I swear! Why should I be barred from camp when Lapis isn't?"  
"Bismuth," said Blue Diamond, sounding tired. "Lapis got into one fight, and she didn't actually start fighting until you had already been attacking her for some time. You've gotten into many fights this year and last year, and been suspended multiple times. I think this may be the only way to get you to really make an effort to improve your behvavior. Besides, if you are going to continually behave this aggressively, than it may not be safe for you to go to the school camp."  
"No, please! I-I can go to camp! There must be something I can do to let me go!"  
They considered this. "Perhaps," said Yellow Diamond. "If you can go until the cabins are arrange for the school camp without getting a single detention or other punishment, and improve your grades sligtly, then you will be allowed to go."  
"Yes! Thank you, Ma'am. I'll do my best! I won't fail you!"

It was a long few weeks, and Bismuth spent most of them either doing homework, studying or having unofficial therapy sessions with Rose (she probably would have been better off with proper therapy, but her parents couldn't afford it), but eventually she made it with no detentions, and it was time to decide on the cabins.  
There would be three to four students in a cabin, the teachers had said, possibly five in cases where they really didn't want to be split up. Boys and girls would be in seperate cabins for obvious reasons, and, despite normally being accepting of Bismuth (and Pearl after she moved into a foster home and was able to start transitioning and be considered 'officially' trans by the school), Bismuth, Pearl and Smoky were all counted as boys, so it seemed obvious that they would be together, if only to avoid bullying.  
The rest of the Crystal Gems, as well as Lapis, had no more decision-making to do. Garnet had insisted on being with her sister Ruby, which in turn meant she had to be with Sapphire, and as much as she would have liked to stay with the Crystal Gems, it was only four students to a cabin and Ruby and Sapphire had already agreed to bunk with Connie Maheswaran, a young Indian girl in their class with pinkish glasses and grades that would make Pearl and Peridot jealous.  
That left exactly four Crystal Gems (and Lapis) left- Amethyst, Rose, Peridot and Lapis. So obviously the four ended up together, and while Garnet was a little sour at being stuck with a bunch of year seven kids, they were all happy with their placements, and as time went by, soon the teenagers were getting on the bus to camp.  
They were allowed to wear casual clothes for the camp, a fact that every single person was happy about, except for Pearl, who always hated casual clothing days because her idea of fashion was very different to everybody else's, and she would always have to choose between clothes that she thought looked good and clothes she would be able to wear without being bullied. Still, for the camp she seemed to have managed to find a balance between the two, wearing a teal shirt, yellow bike shorts, and a necklace with a yellow star on it, tying her hair (which had grown considerably since she got away from her mother, now being around the same length as Peridot's) into a ponytail with a teal ribbon.  
As soon as she saw Rose, she sighed. Her girlfriend was wearing a pink jumper, but underneath it Pearl could recognize a very familiar white dress. "Rose, you wear that dress every time we have a casual clothes day and it's the only thing I've ever seen you wear on the weekend! Do you own any other clothes!"  
"Hey, at least I'm not having an emo phase!" chuckled Rose, gesturing towards Lapis, who was wearing a long, flowing black dress with a black undershirt and a black hijab.  
Lapis shrugged. "I just felt like being a vampire today."  
Lapis was sitting behind Rose and Pearl on the bus, next to Peridot, who was thorougly annoyed at having to spend an hour on the bus to school and then at least two hours on the bus to camp with only half an hour in between. Peridot was wearing a green shirt with a yellow diamond symbol on it (a symbol that made Pearl seem to freak out a little upon seeing), a black jacket and black short shorts over green tights that had yellow spots all over them. Everybody thought she looked like a massive dork, but she didn't seem to notice.  
Amethyst and Smoky, as usual for when they weren't in school uniform, looked like they had just grabbed a shirt, pants and jacket at random in the morning without even looking at it first. Amethyst was wearing a white tank top that was much too big for her (in actual fact it belonged to Sugilite, but there was no way she would tell anybody that) and black leggings, while Smoky had similar leggings under jean shorts and a red shirt with a yellow star on it that badly needed ironing, and both had matching dark purple jackets.  
Bismuth, too, looked like she had put little to no effort into her clothes despite the important day, wearing a purpleish-greyish jumper and red trackpants. Even Ruby, despite having the ever-fashionable Garnet as a sister, was just wearing a red hoodie and brown shorts, looking positively stupid next to Sapphire's beautiful blue dress. The only Crystal Gem apart from Pearl who looked like she had put any effort into her outfit was Garnet, wearing a stylish maroon and pink dress, with tights underneath and a black jacket of course- it was absolutely freezing.  
Rose frowned, affectionately stroking Pearl's hair and moving her fingers along her arms. "Aren't you cold? Didn't you bring a jacket?"  
"I don't feel cold."  
"You know," said Peridot matter-of-factly from the seat behind. "one of the first signs of hypothermia is not feeling cold."  
"No, I never feel the cold. Even when it's snowing I never feel cold."  
"You might wanna get that checked out. That could be something serious. Or it could just be a sign of aut- actually never mind."  
"Do you want my jumper?" offered Rose.  
"No thanks, it's not cold."  
It was a long bus ride, and by the time it was over the teenagers had to basically just dump their bags in the cabins and run off to have lunch. After lunch was the long and annoying task of choosing beds (which meant very intense arguments over who got the top bunk) and unpacking, and by the time that was over it was almost dinner, so little to no exploring could be done while still arriving in time. Instead the Crystal Gems met up and decided it would be a good time to gather outside the cabins somewhere and tell spooky stories, since it was already dark out.  
Peridot volunteered first, having no idea just how much of her story was true.


	11. The Legend of Pink Diamond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smoky Quartz very literally gets up on the wrong side of the bed, and makes a detour after breakfast to find a drug dealer.  
> It makes sense in context.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know some of you reading this think my chapters are waaay too short, but this is longer than I like my chapters, so if you're like me and you can't read too much without getting tired, then the first paragraph is semi-important and foreshadow-y, but nothing terribly plot-important happens, so you can skip this chapter and pick up on the next one without being too confused.

"Twas a dark and spooky night, when a fair maiden roamed the cities. The maiden had the power to heal others and see their thoughts, but she had the mind of a child and a foul temper. The people of the city rebelled, and she was murdered in cold blood...but the legend says that she remains disguised as an ordinary human, plotting her revenge against those who turned against her after she healed their wounds. And that maiden is named.................................. _.................Pink Diamond!"_  
Smoky rolled their eyes. "Seriously? Pink Diamond? Did you just make that up then? I mean, if you're going to have a dramatic name reveal, it should at least be an important name, like...I dunno...a president or something."  
"Yeah," agreed Amethyst. "Besides, I really don't think you understand what the term 'fair maiden' means."  
"Aww, come on!" protested Peridot. "I only started thinking of that on the bus here when you guys said we should tell scary stories when it gets dark! I had to improvise half of it without sounding like I was making it up as I was going along!"  
"So you did just make that up then?" asked Rose. "Is that how you thought of Pink Diamond? Very creative, naming the character after your own school staff. Did you get her first name by looking at my hair or my jumper?"  
Peridot blushed. "Your lipstick," she muttered shyly. "It looks pretty."   
Everyone turned to Pearl, expecting her to give Peridot a glare, but instead she was shaking, covering her mouth with her hands.

"Oh, for God's sake, it wasn't even scary, it didn't make sense!"  
Pearl was trying to keep herself calm, but Smoky's aggressive behavoir was most definitely not helping. Smoky was normally nice, but on this particular morning, they had simply gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.  
No, seriously, I mean they _literally_ got up on the wrong side of the bed. More specifically, while Bismuth and Pearl had shared a bunk bed (with Bismuth at the top and Pearl at the bottom, as the latter was terrified of heights and had a bad habit of thrashing around in her sleep), Smoky was on the top bunk of the bed opposite the two. Early in the morning, they had been awoken by the sound of Pearl screaming, and they had rushed to see if she was okay, completely forgetting that there was only a ladder on one side of the bed, and it wasn't the side closest to Pearl. They landed badly and, swearing under their breath, forced themself to ignore the pain in their ankle as they limped over to see what was wrong with Pearl.  
Needless to say, they were not happy to find that all the fuss was over a nightmare about the legend of Pink Diamond. Stupid story. It wasn't even scary.   
Once Pearl had calmed down, the attention turned to Smoky. "Are you okay?" asked Bismuth. "You had a pretty bad fall back there."  
"Yeah, I think I'll be fine," they muttered through gritted teeth. "Just screwed my ankle up." Only 'screwed' wasn't quite the word they used.  
The three soon realized that breakfast was being served in the main building for the school, and that it was too late to go back to sleep, so they decided to get dressed. Smoky wore a greyish-lavander t-shirt, a salmon pink jacket and jeans; Pearl opted for a teal dress with salmon pink shorts and green socks; and Bismuth just shoved a dark grey jumper on over her pyjamas and hoped nobody would notice.  
The Crystal Gems had arranged to meet up at the main building so they could go exploring after breakfast, so the three didn't go back to their cabins after they had had enough to eat. After some time, Smoky stood up, said, "I have to go find a drug dealer," and limped off.  
They limped over to the girls' cabins, knocked on the one door they knew didn't belong to a stanger (Garnet had been the only one thoughtful enough to show the others where she was), and found themself staring at a young dark-skinned girl with pink-ish glasses, still wearing her blue nightgown and yawning.   
They glanced at the henna patterns on the girl's hands. "Damn," they muttered. "your mother-in-law must love you. Do you know where Garnet is?"  
The girl nodded and ran off.   
A second later Garnet was at the door, still wearing her dark pink pyjamas with cat patterns on them. It was odd to see Garnet in such cute clothes while still frowning emotionlessly and wearing sunglasses that concealed her real emotions. Still, Smoky had a question to ask. "Do you know where Stevonnie is?"  
Garnet paused. "Who's Stevonnie?"  
Smoky internally gasped; how could someone not know Stevonnie? "You know, that smokin' hot- no pun intended- nonbinary kid in 8A? With the really long hair and the belly button piercing and the weird obsession with crop tops in the middle of winter?"  
Garnet adjusted her sunglasses. "I might know them. Is Stevonnie their birth name?"  
A lightbulb went off in Smoky's brain- _that's_ why Garnet hadn't known who they were talking about. "Oh, I forgot, their birth name's Stephanie."   
Garnet carelessly pointed to her left. "They're in the cabin next to us. Just be careful, they and their roommates seem to be throwing some sort of insane party."  
Smoky nodded and ran down to the cabin to the left of Garnet's, gently knocking on the door. Within seconds it violently swung open to show a young half-Indian person with long dark, curly hair. Stevonnie seemed to be wearing somewhat sensible clothing for the cold weather for once in their life, wearing jeans and a brown jacket, but they still showed off their pink belly button piercing with a teal crop top.   
Smoky stared. "Aren't you freezing?" It was early in the morning and cold outside; even in their warm jacket that looked a lot thicker than Stevonnie's and their shirt that covered their whole torso, they were shivering and rubbing their hands together to warm them up.   
"Yeah!" said Stevonnie happily, running their hands through their hair. "How's it goin', Smoky? You look _en-by-lievably smokin'_ hot!"  
"STEVONNIE UNIVERSE IF YOU MAKE ONE MORE BAD PUN I WILL GIVE KEVIN YOUR PHONE NUMBER!" screamed a voice.  
Stevonnie shuddered. "No way, Kevin's a creep. Anyway, what brings you here, Smoky?"  
Smoky groaned. "I got up on the wrong side of the bed."  
"Dysphoric day? Wanna talk?"  
"No," they explained. "I _literally_ got up on the wrong side of the bed. The side that didn't have a ladder. And I was on the top bunk."  
Stevonnie winced. "Ouch."  
"Yeah, tell me about it. I messed up my ankle and I don't wanna tell the teachers 'cos they'll make me and Amethyst go home if it's bad. Do you have painkillers?"  
"Of course I do, I always bring painkillers in case of emergencies. Be right back."   
Smoky chuckled to themself as Stevonnie left; they were still at the age where mentioning anything even remotely sexual or adult was hilarious to them, and they knew from experience that, for Stevonnie, 'emergencies' was almost guarenteed to mean their period coming at the least convenient time possible regardless of how long had passed since the last one.  
Stevonnie returned a second later and shoved a packet of ibuprofen into their hands. "Take it, I always stock way too much."  
"Thanks," muttered Smoky, blushing as they shoved it into their pocket. "Hey, do the teachers know you're wearing that? They said we have to cover our stomachs at all times.  
"Eh, they don't really care about that rule. You could probably wear a crop top without anyone caring."  
Smoky's eyes lit up. "Okay, I have to go and change my shirt. See you at breakfast!"  
They half-ran, half-limped back to their cabin, grinning. In away, they almost envied Stevonnie. Well, it wasn't quite envy. More like inspiration. They admired Stevonnie's happiness and self-confidence, and their inability to be put down by anyone. Kevin's harrasment didn't phase them; they didn't care that every teacher and every student who didn't know them well regarded them as a girl. Stevonnie felt free to grow their hair out, wear skirts and crop tops, wear pink clothes and act as girly as they wanted (which was pretty damn girly), without that invalidating the fact that they were nonbinary.  
"Sorry I took so long," they said as they walked back down to breakast, their jacket now unzipped to show off their yellow crop top. "I had to get changed."  
By this time all of the Crystal Gems were there, along with Lapis. Lapis was wearing her normal blue hijab, and a flowing blue dress with a black diamond in the middle. She sat next to Peridot, far away from most of the Crystal Gems and on the opposite side of the table to Bismuth. Peridot, as usual for whenever she was out of uniform, was commiting another fashion faux pas, this time wearing almost exactly the same outfit as the previous day, but with green trackpants instead of tights, and socks and sandals.  
She failed to notice that she was dissapointing everyone around her with her fashion sense (or lack therof), proudly showing off her footwear choices. Still, at least she owned multiple outfits; Rose's jumper was a slightly different shade of pink, but it was hard to tell if that was because it was actually a different jumper or it was just the lighting (or maybe she had spilled something on it somehow), and her white dress was definitely the same.  
Amethyst had put just as much effort into her outfit as normal- that is to say, absolutely none. Grey tank top that was far too big for her, ripped jeans, and a purple jacket tied around her waist for when it inevitably got cold. The right shoulder strap of her tank top was falling down to her upper arm, showing the black strap of her bra, but she didn't care enough to do anything. The teachers wouldn't care; wearing anything that didn't cover her shoulders was supposedly against the rules, so they couldn't tell her off without looking hypocritical.   
Before long the group had finished their breakfast and dashed back up to the cabins to grab everything they needed several times over. "Okay," said Amethyst impatiently. "Is it time to go exploring yet or what?"  
They all nodded and, making sure the teachers weren't looking, ran off.


	12. Water you doing?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bismuth pays the customary penalty for touching a girl's hijab. Apparently being suspended and punished by the school was not enough of a penalty.

Peridot Iraan was known for being observant. She could look at sets and deduce patterns, figure out someone's intentions by analyzing their speech patterns, and apply the facts she had learned in class to almost any real life situation.  
She just couldn't notice the blatantly obvious facts right in front of her.  
"Smoky," she said, sounding concerned, after they had been walking for some time. "Is your leg injured? You seem to be limping."  
Smoky stared. "Dude, I explained it at breakfast. I hurt my ankle, remember?"  
Peridot blushed. "Umm, I knew that.  
Amethyst walked over to her sibling. "Do you, like, need help walking? You're limping pretty badly."  
"Nah," they answered. "I'll be fine, Stevonnie stocked me up with painkillers."  
"Wait, you have painkillers?" asked Peridot. "Can I have one? My chest hurts like a bi-"  
"Wow, Peridot, I did not expect you to swear." Garnet grinned, then her face fell. "Sorry, I spoke too soon. But, seriously, you've been complaining about your chest hurting a lot lately. You should really get that checked out."  
"Eh, it's probably nothing."  
Smoky sighed as they fiddled around in their pocket and shoved a small tablet into Peridot's hand. "Be careful, Peri. You don't want to do something like, oh, I dunno, _spend two days in hospital because you spent two weeks insisting you didn't need antibiotics?!"_  
Amethyst moved her hands up in defense. "Hey, I really thought it was PMS!"  
"It was a _lung infection!_ And it wasn't even near your period!"  
"Yeah, well, I thought it was just my period coming! And my period came two weeks after the lung infection, so it probably was caused by PMS!"  
Pearl raised an eyebrow. "Even if PMS could case lung infections, which it can't, it wouldn't-"  
"Oh, what would _you_ know?!" snapped Amethyst, and Pearl shut up.  
The group had been walking for a while now. They had snuck out of the camp grounds and decided to go exploring, and before they knew it they were hiking up rocky hills, taking photos every two seconds despite the fact that they were yet to come across anything more interesting than a river that they were now using as a guide so they didn't get lost. The only thing that had happened was that Amethyst had put their jacket on, Smoky had zipped theirs up and everyone had started to complain about the cold- except Pearl, who still didn't have a clue what they were all complaining about.  
For the hundredth time since that morning, Pearl brushed her hair out of her face. She groaned. "I left my headband at the cabins because I didn't want it to get damaged, does anyone have a spare hair tie?"  
Rose took a small black band off of her wrist, handing it to Pearl. "Welcome to the long hair, club, baby. This is life now."  
"Aww, come on, that's not long hair!" protested Amethyst, flipping her own waist-length hair. "This is long hair!"  
Pearl sighed as she tied her hair into a loose braid. "I didn't realize having long hair would be this inconvenient. I'm actually thinking of cutting it again. Like, not as short it was back when I was with mother, but not this long...Sort of like Peridot's hair, but maybe not as messy-"  
An image popped into Peridot's head, and she decided to blurt out the first piece of advice that she thought of, without checking it through her brain to see if it made sense. "Sort of like Lapis's hair?"  
Everyone stared at Lapis's hijab, then at Peridot. Garnet raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you have x-ray vision, Peridot?"  
"Okay," answered Peridot. "first of all, that's not how x-rays work. If I did have x-ray vision, I would see Lapis's skull, not her hair. Second of all- ah- remember that time I discovered that Bismuth was openly trans and she got mad because Lapis accidentally almost told me?"  
"Go on," prompted Garnet.  
"Yeah, she sort of got really mad and ran for Lapis, and when they were fighting, she took her..." She dug around in her brain for the correct word. "She took her Muslim-head-thingy off."  
Lapis burst into laughter. _"Muslim-head-thingy?!"_  
"Well, what do you want me to call it?!"  
"A _hijab_! That's what it's called!"  
Smoky groaned. "Aww, you got to see her hair and I didn't!? No fair!"  
"You could show us now..." mumbled Bismuth, who hadn't said a word to Lapis all morning. She took a single step towards Lapis, trying not to look like she was coming to her, making her stance seem as unthreatening as possible. She tried to take a second step, but Lapis noticed her this time.  
"FUCK OFF!" she screamed, raising her hands towards Bismuth in self-defense. Bismuth was about to apologize, to explain that she wanted to try to turn over a new leaf, but before she could say anything she felt a jet of water pushing her backwards, towards the rock wall. She hit the wall and fell, groaning in pain, and before she knew what was happening her friends were kneeling over her.  
She felt Rose's hands touching her, and the aches from her bruises started to fade. That probably meant nothing was broken. She sat up, staring at Lapis, who looked just as confused and shocked as she did.  
"Are you okay?" asked Pearl, biting her lip.  
"Yeah, I think so..." muttered Bismuth, standing up.  
"Are you bleeding?" asked Rose. "Because it's pretty dusty out here, so if you cut yourself then we'd better find a way to clean it properly or it'll get infected..."  
Bismuth quickly checked over herself to make sure she didn't have any cuts. She replayed the incident in her mind a few times over, then decided she must be remembering it wrong, because Lapis didn't have any magical water powers. "What just happened?"  
"I-I-" stammered Lapis. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I just- I just tried to push you away and then water came out!"  
Pearl looked over at the river beside them. "I-I think you somehow controlled the water in the river. It...it seems more shallow now, doesn't it?"  
"Hmm," said Lapis. She slowly held her hands out towards the water, raising them slightly and, sure enough, a small amount of water, around the same volume as bottled water from the store, rose up from the river and moved around as she swished her hands.  
"Cool!" yelled Peridot. "You have water powers!"  
"Liquid powers," corrected Pearl before immediately covering her mouth. After noticing everyone staring at her, she mumbled, "Well, it's most likely liquid powers- I mean, it seems improbable that it would only be water-"  
"Only one way to find out," said Lapis, smirking. She turned to glare at Bismuth, and after a few seconds a dark patch appeared and started to spread on the more muscular girl's pyjama pants. Once it was clear that everyone had noticed it, it stopped spreading, and Bismuth felt another jet of water hit her, but this time it was more gentle.  
_"That's_ why you never touch a girl's hijab."  
Lapis was grinning, but it wasn't the malicious grin she wore when she was about to do something horrible; instead, she looked sort of like Amethyst after pulling a prank, or like she had just won a meaningless, petty game with someone she didn't exactly get along with, but didn't hate either. She held out her hand. "In all seriousness, though...There's a lot of scary stuff in the world, Bismuth. And I don't understand all of it. But I do understand that we won't be able to figure this all out if we're too busy fighting each other. So until we can find out how Peridot can levitate things and and I apparently have hydrokinesis...Truce?"  
Bismuth shook her hand. "Truce. Just...don't magically make me wet myself to prove a point or test something out again, okay?"  
"I won't...if you don't scare me." She laughed. "You can't even see it anyway- why do you think I covered you in river water afterwards?"  
"To be honest," answered Bismuth. "I assumed that was just to rub it in..."  
Rose took off her pink jumper; as everyone stared in shock, wondering how one could possibly be warm at this time, she handed it to Pearl. "You really do need to wear more sensible clothes, it's freezing."  
Pearl noticed she was being offered a jumper, then politely held up her hand to refuse. "No thanks, I'm not cold.  
"Pearl, you're shivering. And you're going to get sick if you stay out in the cold wearing that."  
Pearl hadn't realized she was shivering. She didn't feel cold, but everybody else was wearing much warmer clothes than her and still complaining that they felt cold, and Rose was concerned enough to offer her her jumper, so she decided it must be pretty cold even if she didn't feel it and put Rose's jumper on. It was far too big for her, easily surpassing the end of her dress so it looked like she was only wearing a jumper with no pants. "There, happy now?"  
Rose frowned. "Did you just bring dresses and shorts? Don't you have anything warm?"  
Pearl shrugged. "It's not that cold."  
"Oh, my Pearl, you'll get sick, you need to wear something warm...But all my clothes are so big on you..." She looked around at the group. "Lapis, you look like you would be around her size...Do you have any spare jackets or pants she could borrow?"  
Lapis glanced at Pearl and thought for a moment. "Yeah, I think I brought some spare jackets that she'd like..."  
"Is it really that cold?" asked Pearl.  
"Yes! It's freezing!" snapped Peridot. "Seriously, Smoky, are you sure your crappy painkillers work?! My chest is killing me!"  
Garnet looked concerned. "If it's that bad then we should probably go back to the camp."  
"No, I'll be fine."  
Rose stepped forward, gently placing a hand on Peridot's shoulder. "Peri, we're all worried about you. Do your parents know about your chest?"  
Peridot blushed. "Well, kind of...Anyway, it's getting late. We should go back to camp."  
Garnet adjusted her sunglasses. "I just said that."  
"Yes, well...I've spent some time thinking about it."  
"I said it ten seconds ago."  
"Well, I've realized we need to check if Bismuth is really okay, and we can't do that out here."  
"I need to change my pants..." murmured Bismuth.  
"I told you," said Lapis. "you can't even see it! The water probably washed it all off anyway-"  
"Oh, for God's sake, let's just go back!" yelled Pearl.  
Everyone stared at her, stunned into silence. After a good ten seconds, Amethyst finally giggled. "Wow, P, I thought your religion prevented you from _saying the Lord's name in vain?"_  
Pearl stuttered uselessly for a few seconds, then blurted out, "How come you can make fun of Christianity all you want but if you never say anything bad to Rose's religion because you don't want to be antisemitic?"  
"Pearl," said Rose, sounding more annoyed than Peridot had ever heard her (which wasn't terribly annoyed, but still). "name one historical event when eleven million Catholic people were tortured and killed for being Catholic."  
"Actually," corrected Peridot. "only around six million of those were Jews- Hitler was also racist, homophobic and ableist, and he also killed murderers. Which probably makes him the most hypocritical man in the world. Like, seriously, Hitler, you think murder is bad? You think you should never kill someone? You think you shouldn't kill, oh I dunno, _eleven million people-"_  
"We're going back to camp," said Rose forcefully. "and we're not making any more jokes about the Holocaust. Understood?"  
Nobody dared argue with her, so they went back.


	13. 2:47

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lot can happen in one minute.

Hawaii. She was in Hawaii. She didn't know why she was in Hawaii. She didn't care, either- the idea that she wasn't supposed to be in Hawaii simply didn't occur to her. She ran across a beach. She felt the sand in her toes. She ran her fingers through her hair. She wasn't wearing her hijab; instead she wore a revealing blue bikini, with a blue necklace around her neck and a short skirt over her bikini bottoms. She didn't know why she wasn't wearing her hijab. She didn't care, either- the idea that she was supposed to be wearing her hijab at the moment simply didn't occur to her.  
Hawaii was apparently a very small place, because she soon ran into her friend Garnet Corrundum, who was a singing unicorn. "Here," said Garnet, growing an arm out of her chest and handing Lapis a piece of paper. "It's Lion's phone number." And out of nowhere Lion appeared- a blue cat that had long, curly pink hair like Rose Quartz.  
Her bikini had pockets. She didn't notice that that was incredibly unusual. She reached into her pockets and took out a clear plastic bottle full of a red liquid. It was the blood of an Italian. She didn't question where that information came from; it was just in her brain, and she treated it as a normal thing that she was supposed to know, like that one and one makes two. A question popped into her head: _Why do I have the blood of an Italian?_ And almost immediately her brain came up with an answer: _In case of emergencies._ It was an answer that raised more questions than it answered, but it satisfied her curiosity, so she continued.  
Lapis Lazuli suddenly jolted awake. She checked the time on her phone. It was 2:47 in the morning. She shook her head, remembering the dream. Blood of an Italian? In case of emergencies? Her mind came up with the strangest things. She looked around, trying to find out what had awoken her at such a stupid time, but her body quickly answered that question for her. It was something that was annoying enough on its own, particularly when it happened in the middle of the night, but positively inconvenient on a school camp, since it required her to get up without waking her friends and explain what she was doing if one of them was awake.  
She had to pee.

 _Air. Need air. Blankets suffocating. Lungs on fire. Need more air. Not enough air. Everything spinning. Others asleep. Can't wake them up. Clutching phone. Check time. Middle of the night. Teachers would be asleep. Couldn't tell them anyway. Parents would be mad. Too dark. Can't see a thing. Can't breathe. Chest burning. Meltdown incoming._  
Peridot Iraan violently kicked the blankets off of her, placing a hand on her chest. It took everything in her to not violently scream. She felt around beside the bed to find her water bottle, and sat up so she could drink it. Bad idea- everything was spinning and the sudden movement almost made her throw up. She grabbed onto the bottom of the bed for support and drank. Almost none of it made it into her throat; she felt too weak to keep her mouth closed properly. She carefully put the bottle back down, but within an instant she felt like something was stabbing her in the chest. She realized she was crying.   
She heard Lapis stirring in the bed above her and quickly shoved a hand into her mouth to quiet her sobs. She didn't want Lapis fussing over her. Then she would freak out, and the teachers would get involved, and then her parents would...  
No. Her parents would not be angry, because they would never know. Nobody would know. Rose had found out already, but she would forget about it in the morning. She took out her phone, glancing at the time. 2:47. A little over two hours and it was technically early enough to justify getting out of bed. She would be fine. She would stay there until the others were awake, and then she would pretend that she had slept fine.

 _It was a normal day._  
 _In the movies, it was always a dramatic confession that only happened after weeks of hating oneself and angsting over whether to tell someone, but in life, it was anticlimactic. The two were sitting under a tree in their backyard, resting and wiping sweat off their foreheads after another few failed tree climbing attempts, and then Morion said, out of nowhere, "I'm nonbinary."_  
 _"That's nice," said their sister. "Do you want different pronouns? Or a new name?"_  
 _"I've been thinking about it for a while. I think my name is Smoky. It sounds cool. And...I dunno about pronouns right now, but for some reason boy pronouns just seem wrong."_  
 _"They seem wrong because you're not a boy, you doofus. I'll stick with they/them until you've made up your damn mind. Come on, let's go tell Dad and Sugi."_  
Amethyst rolled over in her half-asleep, semi-conscious state, smiling at the memory. She checked her phone, glancing at the time. The screen said 2:47, but she was too asleep to properly register the time, only that she didn't need to be awake yet. She was vaguely aware of footsteps that, based on how heavy they sounded, seemed to belong to Lapis, but she didn't actually care enough to wake up or ask what she was doing. She rolled over again and, making a pathetic little noise, drifted back into sleep.

Rose could still hear Peridot sobbing faintly if she listened, but she knew there was nothing she could do. The blonde teen simply didn't want to be helped. She had tried talking to her some half an hour ago, when she had been awoken by a noise in the cabin next to her, but the smaller girl snapped at Rose for daring to talk to her and positively freaked when the pink-haired girl suggested talking to a teacher.  
No, Peridot had seemed insistent that she needed alone time, and that Rose should just go back to sleep. Rose had wanted to press the issue until she found out how to help, but she remembered from her few minutes researching autism two months ago that if an autistic person said they wanted to be alone, they probably meant it, so she had decided to simply tell Peridot that she was always there if she needed someone to talk to and gone back to sleep.  
But she couldn't sleep. Not with the poor girl crying near her. Rose hated hearing others cry, and she hated it more when she knew there was nothing she could do. She had hoped that perhaps Lapis would be able to help, but she didn't dare awake the young girl; eventually Lapis would wake from her sleep and go to the bathroom, but she didn't hear Peridot's sobs. A part of Rose wanted to ask her for help, but she decided against it; if Peridot really wanted to be left alone, then Lapis wouldn't be able to help, and Lapis was likely still half-asleep and had just half-woken up to use the bathroom and gone straight back to bed.  
So she tried to go to sleep. She knew she wouldn't be able to, but she had nothing better to do, since she couldn't do anything in the cabin without waking Amethyst and Lapis, and she would be in trouble if the teachers caught her outside at this hour. So she forced herself to block out the sound of Peridot crying and drifted into a restless sleep.

It was 2:47. It was almost too late- in the minds of too naive year seven students, that is. Legally speaking, it was four years too early. In the mind of anyone sensible, it was at least a year too early.   
It was 2:47. Sapphire's parents never let her have sleepovers, and doing it in the day time on the weekend was practically begging for the wrath of their parents, and possibly Garnet.  
It was 2:47. They had promised each other they would do it tonight. They had promised themselves they would do it tonight.  
It was 2:47. They should have started five minutes ago, but Sapphire was nervous and kept hesitating and finding excuses.   
It was 2:47. It was now or never.

It was 2:48, and Garnet was not happy with the sound she woke up to.


	14. Something Entirely New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ruby and...Actually, you know what? No funny plot summary this time. You know why? Because I am now typing with one hand due to an arm injury, my parents took my laptop off me and I only just got it back, and the result was that I freaked out thinking y'all would hate me for taking so long, so I rushed this chapter to the point where even I'M not sure what it's about, and I don't have time to fix it because my phone isn't working and I need to try to fix it before school tomorrow.  
> Seriously, though...sorry this is so weird. Chapters will soon be back to their normal levels of coherence, although updates may be slow until I can type with two hands again.

It was 2:47, and Sapphire finally yelled out, perhaps a little too loudly, "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!"  
Ruby stepped backwards, stunned. "But- You said you wanted to-"  
"Well, I don't!" she snapped, failing to realize that she was shouting loud enough that Garnet was starting to wake up beside them.  
Garnet was known for waking up quickly. Unlike her younger sister- unlike anyone who isn't suspected to have some sort of supernatural waking up power- Garnet didn't need to groan as she turned her alarm of and spend half an hour drinking coffee before she was awake enough to do anything. She woke up in the morning, and then she was fully awake and ready to get dressed and go to school, without needing even a second to properly wake up.  
Which meant that, unfortunately, Garnet was not half-asleep.  
"What are you two doing?"  
Ruby quickly grabbed the ribbon she had left on the floor and used it to tie her curly hair back into a somewhat managable state. "Uhh...Well, you see, we were just- uhh- doing some...stuff..."  
Sapphire looked at Garnet fearfully. "I-I didn't want to! She-She-"  
"Saph, I thought you were into it! You should have said something-"  
"What," repeated Garnet, with a scary calmness to her voice. "are you two doing?"  
"She wanted me to-" stuttered Sapphire, tears falling out of her remaining eye. "She tried to get me to have-"  
She couldn't make herself say it aloud; as her voice failed her, she mouthed the word to Garnet, praying her future sister-in-law was good at reading lips.  
At this point Ruby was starting to cry too. "Saph, I'm sorry! I swear, I thought it was what you wanted! If you had just said something, I would have stopped, I promise!"  
Garnet figured it out. "You two are far too young to be even thinking about this stuff! Go back to bed right now! We are talking about this in the morning!"

Lectures from Garnet. Angry promises that both of their parents would hear about it if anything of the sort ever happened again. Forced to go exploring with the Crystal Gems without Connie because they couldn't be trusted alone. As the group were walking along the river once again, up the rocky paths, Ruby and Sapphire snuck off and took some time to look at the forest below them and think on the situation they had gotten themselves into. And, as fictional characters tend to do when deep in thought, they sung.  
_"Where did we go? What'd we do?_  
_I think we made something entirely new_  
_And it wasn't quite me, and it wasn't quite you_  
_I think it was someone entirely new..."_

_"Oh, um, well I just can't stop thinking..."_

_"So, um, did you say I was different?"_

_"And you hadn't before?"_

_"Of course not!_  
_When would I have ever?"_

_"I'm so sorry-"_

_"No, no, don't be-"_

_"And now you're here forever!"_

_"What about you?"_

_"What about me?"_

_"Well you're here too_  
_We're here together..."_

Ruby glanced towards her left. "Holy shi-"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: Due to my inability to type fast with one hand and the fact that I shall be busy writing fics for Pride Month all June, this fic is officially on hiatus. Don't even bother checking for updates until July. If I haven't posted a chapter by August then assume this fic is dead and I'm in denial about losing interest in it.


End file.
